Has anyone brought a plant out of this before? Should I give up?

[UndergroundFarmer]

This is mite damage! Hemp russet mites in all likelihood. Before you go too crazy flushing your soil or making radical changes in your tents, Google images of mite damage and see if anything looks similar to what you're dealing with. Severely infested plants should be trashed, possibly burned even. I let most of them freeze to death outside. The rest will be washed off with Lost Coast Plant Therapy unless I need something stronger. I don't think grow sites emphasize integrated pest control enough. This is not a problem most growers will know how to handle until it takes down enough of their plants. 1/31/2022

I've had another batch in veg turn up this way. The new growth crinkles up and growth nearly stops. I let the humidity levels fall too low. I have an Alien Rock Candy that isn't affected because it was transplanted later than the rest after I figured out that the low RH was screwing everything up. All else was the same.

Here's a sample:



I've got two new Niwas keeping things in line now. I thought for a while it was brought on by stress from manifolding them so I laid off cutting on the ARC until this week after I was satisfied that she was healthy enough. Still, I only gave her a simple topping. New growth looks fine on her. I forget which one this one in the photo is, but it's probably Expert Gorilla (not that it matters). I've got another batch in the nursery so it's not such a disaster if they can't be saved, just a shame that I had to learn this way. It's just another one of those things that I never had to deal with in hydro.

[Rwise]

Also give them a good look over for bugs, bugs often cause leaf curl.

[Eliot Pryor]

That's what I thought also.

[UndergroundFarmer]

I've got a population of fungus gnats but they are mostly harmless and I'm about to run them off with Neem seed meal this weekend.

[UndergroundFarmer]

You were right after all. It was hemp russet mites!

[Going2fast]

Check out this thread. I lost 4 plants this summer due to this. I thought high heat and humidity had caused it but it was only these four that were close proximity to each other. The. New growth looked exactly like yours. No signs of bugs on plant or roots. They all died within a few weeks

https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum/growing-community/530875-answer-to-the-wilting-problem-some-are-having

[UndergroundFarmer]

It took a few tries to get the page to load but I got it. I tried a Google image search and the infected plants don't resemble mine, in fact they look better! I might just make up a bleach solution for the trimmers though to be safe. I might just start pinching to top and defoliate more as well so I can get around the danger of infected trim scissors.

[Gingerbeard]

When you say this happened to another batch, UndergroundFarmer , are you talking another grow or this?

[UndergroundFarmer]

I'm talking about another batch of seedlings moved to veg then manifolded. The survivors from the previous batch are in flower and they are trying but buds are tiny and very slow to develop.

[Gingerbeard]

Quick Wikipedia link. Cannabis mention.

[UndergroundFarmer]

You were damn close. It was hemp russet mites.

[Gingerbeard]

Whew! I thought I had crabs. Thanks, Doc. Thanks for the website.
Wait! What forum is this.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Here's the GWE page about Boron deficiency which I believe caused my issue.

"Boron is not absorbed well if there isn’t enough moisture, for example if plant is underwatered or humidity is very low (below 25% relative humidity in the air). Proper watering practices will help prevent underwatering, and a humidifier may be needed to achieve the best growth if your grow room is very dry. Boron is not absorbed well if there isn’t enough moisture, for example if plant is underwatered or humidity is very low (below 25% relative humidity in the air). Proper watering practices will help prevent underwatering, and a humidifier may be needed to achieve the best growth if your grow room is very dry."

The first time around, I went crazy blaming the nutrients, the pH adjusters and probably made the whole situation worse. I'll get more pictures of the damaged bits this weekend and a shot of the Alien Rock Candy that wasn't exposed to low RH. This trouble only started this winter so it all makes sense.

[Gingerbeard]

I won't post any of the sites I looked at. GWE has similar information.

When the late Sexless M was growing, I made a post about hollow stems. Boron deficiency comes up a number of times in research. Might I ask you to pinch a stem? Maybe that'll give you a little more evidence, boron or not?

[UndergroundFarmer]

I tried a few. The smaller stems are solid enough. The main stems I topped were hollow.

[Gingerbeard]

Evidence for B-def?

[UndergroundFarmer]

B-def apparently triggers some degree of calcium deficiency too, so yeah, kinda.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Northern Lights:


Alien Rock Candy with NL just behind it:


They are both in the same mix with pH hanging around in the 6.2-6.8 range.

[UndergroundFarmer]

That's a 9 finger leaf up top. She feels good!

[MagicMike66]

I had 2 autos that did this on my last grow, one after the other. No idea what caused it but I just tossed both of them

[SoOrbudgal]

You sure you don't have heat or circulation issue? They look like their dehydrated ?

[UndergroundFarmer]

They've been both a little cold and a lot dry before I took care of the environmental challenges.

[UndergroundFarmer]

I'll decide what to do with them tomorrow. I'll probably just clear the decks and compost the damaged ones and start a whole 'nother batch of seeds to replace them. The speed that the healthy ones are growing reminds me that this isn't normal nor is it worthwhile screwing around with plants this sickly.

[Ckbrew]

Sometimes it is better to cut your loss and start over. You are not a new grower so you have experience in what you think they will produce, or not produce. If you still think Elm disease is a possibility, maybe you want to incinerate them instead of composting.

[PRIMO]

UndergroundFarmer If you're gonna ditch her pull the whole plant and inspect the soil for critters and to see if maybe she's root bound? Sometimes a girl just needs a bigger cup size.

[UndergroundFarmer]

That's not too far fetched. I did inspect the root balls. In fact, I didn't even wait to reclaim the coco, I did it the same day. Roots were all healthy enough and several were ready for transplant. If they had stayed healthy, they would have gone to much larger pots just before being flipped to flower.

[UndergroundFarmer]

I took down all the sick ones in veg on Sunday and transplanted all of the seedling that were big enough to 1.5 gallon pots. All are doing well but Alien Rock Candy is showing just a bit of the same shriveling but only at the top two nodes. I topped her using fingers instead of trimmers. I may try adding some basalt rock dust to see if it stops all of that. Who knows, maybe it was an actual boron deficiency the whole time but that seems unlikely. I'll check pH tomorrow just to be sure but the rest of the plant is fine - the lower growth nodes still look good.

[UndergroundFarmer]

Last night I noticed the Alien Rock Candy was showing more signs of crinkling and shriveling so I did an emergency transplant to a 3 gallon fabric pot. It could well be that my plants have been unhappy in these tall narrow plastic pots. The roots were starting to wrap around the sides some and it was definitely not to soon to transplant. Blueberry (which is growing fast!) and a few others will go to larger pots this weekend for sure. There are still no signs of trouble in the others, luckily. I may just start moving these guys straight from cell pots to 5 gallon pots from now on.